Time for a new thread. I don't know that I have much clarity right now, but maybe that's the best time to post. Painter, Sunny, V, Maybell, I appreciate the replies.
I'm going to stray a bit from things I believe, and talk more about how I feel. I want to make it clear, my feelings aren't intended to criticize others. If, for example, I say I'm put off by something, that isn't to say that others are doing something wrong. I am merely sorting through what I feel, trying to understand why, and pondering whether these are things that can change, or things I need to accept.
First of all this is still relatively new for me. Most of my life I didn't care about how I felt, and I didn't think about it. My feelings were background noise that needed to be tuned out as I focused on driving forward. Somewhere many years ago I decided that feelings weren't good for me, and that when I remained laser focused on a target the passage of time didn't hurt me as much. Some people might think that's 'unhealthy', but not everyone has been dealt the same hand. Those for whom the passage of time itself is painful can understand the gift that it is to find a way to manage through that pain and find not just relief, but feelings of sublime peacefulness. This is what pool has been for me in my life.
When I was younger I always craved companionship. I never, ever thought someone could bridge the gap between the rest of the world and me. I was far out there. And the longer I went on my own journey, the further away I felt. I have also never asked a girl out or pursued a woman. Women are a universe away from me. It's not fear of rejection, it's more futility at trying to bridge this difference.
Both women in my life approached me. When they did I thought that maybe they saw what it was about me that makes me special. Now I understand they didn't, or in any case that it's not very important. What's more important is the day to day dynamic of behavior and how they feel as a result. I didn't understand how to make that dance work, or they didn't appreciate the dance I had in me. They both left.
Now I find myself living in a lifestyle that I hesitate to accept. We live in a materialistic world that I find distasteful, yet I, too, want nice things. I'd like a place with room for a pool table so I can find my solace after a day's work, I'd like a place with rooms for my children so they don't all share one bedroom, I'd like a car with less than 150K on it and maybe even one with a port to my iphone so I can play my music as I trek up and down the territory I cover.
I am torn between the road I went down when I was younger, blocking everything out, pursuing greatness in one rather pointless endeavor, not because it matters, but because I found a deep joy in going to bed every night exhausted, knowing I bled that day. But on the other hand I want to be there for my kids, to celebrate our time together. For many years I watched them grow up from behind what felt like a glass dome, and in the last couple of years I've found a way to connect with them. I'm not going to let that go. And I'm torn between wanting to make sure they have time to play, time to watch TV, and for them to have birthday presents, and wanting them to know what it means to be hungry, to be without, to need to struggle. I took them to the Queen of Katwe today, the story of the young girl who grew up in the slums of an African village, struggling for survival, and how she used chess to eventually transcend her upbringing. I want them to appreciate what they have without having to go without. So I won't block myself away, I will continue to let them share my life, until they go their own way. And that means that I won't succumb to the part of me that wants to retreat entirely within myself again, to give myself entirely to pursuit and struggle. And at times it is hard for me to allow myself to relax, to take leisure.
The same way, I am turned off with our entitlement. Both men's and women's. It's our humanity maybe. Maybe it's our culture. But I don't look at relationships the way other people do. I'm not sure I can even explain the difference. For me opening myself up to a woman is not something that I want to 'try out' with a number of women, looking for someone that I believe is a match, or turning them away until I find someone that fits my preconceptions of what I need. In the past I thought the way it would work was ONE woman, for better or worse, finding ways through inevitable differences, and finding ways to appreciate what we had. Because whatever those differences were, we'd have the miracle of a relationship that lasted, of a connection between us in a universe I didn't even know that was possible. But that didn't work, because apparently I was the only one that saw that as a miracle. Other people seemed to take that for granted, and were more focused on whether they liked the same restaurants or whatever. Because maybe for them that wasn't a miracle.
Who's the crazy one? It certainly doesn't work that way. It might if other people felt the way I do. But whether I'm crazy or not, whether I'm right or wrong, there is no question I am in the minority. This isn't how other people work. And maybe it's not how I work either. Just like I am a minimalist in my heart, yet long for a pool table, I longed for a committed relationship that wasn't based on 'what my partner does for me' or 'how they make me feel', but rather a celebration of the fact that we've been given a partner at all- yet I still wanted things from my partner and struggled to remain appreciative instead of resentful when it got difficult.
In any case, how I feel is repelled by relationships. Like two magnets turned so they create more resistance as they get closer. I saw XW today with her BF, I had to pick something up for one of my daughters. She made a point to let them know she was dressed up because she was going to a Halloween Party. I felt like she was talking to me, call it a gut feeling, sometimes she makes a point of talking to me indirectly in the guise of talking to the kids. I felt she was trying to hurt me and show me how she is better off now. But all I could see is someone that would leave a marriage with someone that would get in the middle of a marriage, and I just wanted to regain my distance from those people. This is why I tend to be an island.
I was in a spot yesterday where I had a little time talking to a young woman from China. Through conversation I was talking about my kids, and I mentioned I was divorced as it was the easiest way to answer her questions about what I was doing with them this weekend, and some of the follow ups. I didn't go on long about it, but I did tell her that I had joined an online community to stand by my marriage. And that I found it was odd how many marriages end in the United States because someone 'isn't happy'. I brought that up because she had been in China until 6 years ago, and I was curious how that compared to her home country.
She told me that it was a bit different. That women stayed with their men. That men weren't expected to treat the women very well. Many had mistresses and the woman was expected to be ok with that. That the women were expected to remain faithful to their husbands, although she mentioned that these days there were some that were starting to consider leaving.
I told her I felt that things had gone crazygotten strange in the US, that in days past a man that worked hard, took care of his family, didn't drink, cheat, or beat his woman was considered a catch. And now that's not good enough, women are leaving because they 'aren't happy'. She agreed this was crazy. She said that the men here are very nice, much nicer than in her home country. And that she thinks the women here are very entitled. She laughed and said "I like Chinese women and US men". Then she told me I should find a Chinese girl, and I wasn't sure if she was speaking in general terms or testing the waters. I told her I was focusing on my children at the time but that she might be on to something if that door opened for me again.
Do I have a conclusion? Not really. I'm not here to call everyone on these forums entitled or uncommitted anymore than I'm here to call everyone materialistic. We're all humans, and we are products of our environment and culture. We can understand it, and at times rise above it, but so much is still a herd mentality that sometimes it feels all we can do is fine tune, we can't change our basic programming. Not in this lifetime. So I'm making peace with that. And trying to figure out where I fit in.
Right now it's fine. I fit in with my kids. I fit in at the pool hall. And thanks to the graciousness from all of you, I am able to fit in on these forums. And that's good enough.
We started Dune this week. We are going to watch Chessnetwork's (a chess youtuber) coverage of a chess game played by Phiona Mutesi (the girl the movie was based on). And we are going to hang out a bit. After the movie I played in the arcade with them. D5 always wants to play the crane game at Perkins, and I always say no. Today the crane game at the arcade had minion stuffed animals, and she LOVES the minions. So today I got her a bunch of tokens and let her play. She didn't get one, so I'm ordering her one for her birthday in a few weeks. We will eat soon, and then I'll read another chapter of Dune, and watch a bedtime show and watch them goof around. Then I'll do some work, maybe play a game of chess.
My point, DB forums, is that it's all good. I must have made a good choice not to pursue pool, because time doesn't hurt me anymore as the clock ticks. Not often, unless there's a reason. And that's alright. Mid-November I am taking a few days off, my best friend and I are going to go out of state and play some pool. Not a tournament, just trolling for some money games. We'll actually be in Chicago. Looks like my timing is off and Sunny will have already left, but that's ok, unless she was going to Red Shoes Billiards I doubt I'd have run into her anyway.
Thanks for continuing to make me part of this community and wishing you all a wonderful weekend. Can't wait to see the next SNL. I just watched on Youtube "Epic Rap Battles" with Hillary and Trump and it might have been the greatest 4 minutes I've ever seen on video. What will I do once this election is over?
Me:38 XW:38 T:11 years M:8 years Kids: S14, D11, D7 BD/Move out day: 6/17/14, D final Dec 15
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
Zues, Zues. I enjoy reading your posts because a lot of what you write speaks to me, despite our many differences. At the same time, it can cut to close to the core.
I am feeling like you do now. I am wondering if I can ever open myself up, warts and all because it takes so much effort. I might have just exhausted my emotional vulnerability in this lifetime.
Maybe this is just a season in our lives. Maybe there will be someone who approaches you again. Maybe there will be someone who feels that my warts are not warts but beauty marks.
Wrt to Chinese girls, they come in all shapes and sizes, and with varying beliefs in M as well. I hate to disappoint you but I know many who not only will not condone As in their M, but who will also not hesitate to end their M because their S were not this, were not that, did not buy them this, did not buy them that. And there are those who will break up someone else's M just so that they can have someone who will buy them this and buy them that.
As for their gentle demeanour? It can be a case of steel claws (wolverina?) in velvet gloves.
But I also know many lovely ones.
As for Chinese men, I heard (and witnessed) that those from Shanghai can be uxorious.
I do agree with your friend's observation that the stigma is greater for women than for men when it comes to A and D.
Well, enough about cultural differences.
Do continue posting because I enjoy reading your posts.
Btw, regardless of which culture your future significant other may be from, do continue with the book reading. That is a total killer for most, if not all, women. Unless of course you're reading from Chess or Pool for dummies.
You can call me Dory/ Grl.
As a wise fish once sang,"Just keep swimming!"
It's no use to go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.
Its Sunday evening here in NZ Zues. I drop by often to see if you have posted. You were on my mind as I travelled through my day today. I wondered if I ever sent an invitation out for you to attend a special event in my life if you would accept or decline. I would be forever hopeful that you would but I think likely you would not. And then I see your new post and I read it and think, maybe this is a sign that I might be wrong. Chicago!! The NZ Rugby Team is playing Ireland there next weekend. Hahaha. I am coming to Chicago to watch them play.
Then another sign, this link will take you to a NZ film about man who loved chess, but who lived a life of pain and being misunderstood by others. It is a true story. Please know that it is a dark film at times, but there is light there if you look for it. http://www.nzfilm.co.nz/film/the-dark-horse.
Please know I am not ignoring your full post, but I feel there are others here, who hold the voice of challenging you to move forward to find love. And while I want that for you so very much, I feel that, for now you need your beliefs and process as a life raft to see you this part of your journey.
It also feels to me that you feel the need to repeat your position to us, and I worry that by doing so we in someway support you to maintain the neutral pathways to go over the same ground, which only allows you to remain attached to your thoughts and feelings about your position on love, relationships and women. I know its controlling of me to want something for you that you don't want for yourself, so I lovingly bow to you and will no longer seek you to ask for more than what you want for yourself.
Can I make one observation though, with your permission. You observed of yourself that most of the people with whom you post or post to you are women. Are we? Am I really a Universe away from you? A bridge of difference that cannot be crossed. My sense is the universe of women is but an arms length away, and the bridge, well in my observation is no more than the distance of crossing the street. You cross it every day with each and everyone of us. Is there something in this worth exploring? to grow from?
When you are ready, I think my friend, this narrative you have constructed about you and woman an untruth and myth constructed. How do I know it's an untruth..because I am here, feeling connected to YOU. How quickly I forget, that I promised not to push, but to respect. You are consolidating the enormous changes you have experienced.
As for your reference to my sense of being Charlie, and you talking about someone coming from the inside out to you. I feel like I have, I have been standing right next to you the whole time Zues, and you just never noticed I was there. That I am here.
So much love for you Zues.
PS. Maybe Sunny will leave a baby alligator with the bartender, at Red Shoes Billards. Likely if you want it, all you will have to do is ask for it!! I might even help Sunny sneak it in.
Funny thing Jellyb, I am in Chicago for the Rugby too.
Then to NY, then to Phili for the Essential Experience course, it was much discussed here when I first joined the board and I set myself the goal of attending it. I didnt meet my time frame because of fins and I guess the time wasn't right.
It's going to be glorious. I am looking forward to shift.
So Zues are you ready to shift?
V
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose. V 64, WAW
We'll actually be in Chicago. Looks like my timing is off and Sunny will have already left, but that's ok, unless she was going to Red Shoes Billiards I doubt I'd have run into her anyway.
Originally Posted By: JellyB
Chicago!! The NZ Rugby Team is playing Ireland there next weekend. Hahaha. I am coming to Chicago to watch them play.
Originally Posted By: Vanilla
Funny thing Jellyb, I am in Chicago for the Rugby too.
Originally Posted By: Painter
What a coincidence... I'll be driving down Chicago that day, too!
I just love it when the planets align. Well.....one of them seems to need a little adjustment, but......
OK, but seriously. Jelly always speaks the truth to you, Zues. It seems you are determinedly holding on to a narrow view of women and projecting it onto all of us. Even though you suspect we might not all fit into the same mold, it's just easier to classify us in a group that supports your position. That's OK. You are doing what gets you through the week in a way you can manage, focusing on your kids, your job, pool. You've come such a long way already, it's time to stay here a while and regroup. When you are ready to shift again, you will. And I suspect there will be an amazing woman there ready to take your hand and lead you down the path to a place where it's a little easier to trust, to share, to breathe. Promise when you get there, you'll let us know. And you'll bring her to Chicago.
Well.....one of them seems to need a little adjustment, but......
Hi Sunny! What else is new
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It seems you are determinedly holding on to a narrow view of women and projecting it onto all of us. Even though you suspect we might not all fit into the same mold, it's just easier to classify us in a group that supports your position.
I don't know Sunny. First off, I wasn't singling out women, I include men in the mix, I'm just not interested in men from a marriage perspective. Secondly, I'm not suggesting everyone fits this mold, but I am saying it's frighteningly common in today's world.
Ginger just referenced this in her last thread, mentioned her cousin's BD of some type.
Juju talks about the same fear in her thread on newcomers, about how she's gravely concerned a man just won't stick around through the hard times.
Just yesterday my dad told me that a long time friend of his is getting divorced. Been together since '68, their names in my mind are like ham and eggs. But no more.
It's tough to sort through, because there are feelings and there are facts. My feelings are that I am averse to relationships, so part of me wants to look and say to myself "you need to grow through your insecurities and take a chance", but the facts are the facts, and the fact is that I just don't see any promise in a relationship. It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you, right?
Quote:
It also feels to me that you feel the need to repeat your position to us, and I worry that by doing so we in someway support you to maintain the neutral pathways to go over the same ground, which only allows you to remain attached to your thoughts and feelings about your position on love, relationships and women.
Thanks JB. Maybe this is so. I'm not deliberately trying to bicker. As I mentioned above I'm trying to sort through these things. Part of me is trying to accept some tough realities about the world we live in, and I post to get and give support to others dealing with those same losses. In some ways running through this again and again in my mind does help me to process this and be new to different ideas. After BD the constant spinning my wheels was a needed stage to be able to accept and let go. And I am always absorbing new ideas from you all, even if it doesn't translate to me changing overnight.
Quote:
Am I really a Universe away from you?
Thank you JB. I appreciate you being there.
I don't really know why I feel the way I do.
Sometimes I think there is something very, very big just under the surface of me that I'm not even aware of. There are flashes that come through once in a while, almost like having dreams about a memory you repress...and I just wonder if I have walled away monumental amounts of feelings of inadequacy. Like I'm sitting on a volcano that's about to erupt and I don't even notice anymore. Most of the time I just assume this is normal, but then there are a few things that I observe about myself, ways that I don't work the same as other people. Such as how distant I feel from others, which my IC has lead me to believe was because I was so distant from myself, and may still be. Such as the fact that I am so sensitive to criticism. Such as my persistent nagging belief that only a woman with serious problems would put up with me because I am so defective. Such as my social alienation, where I can function and get along with people all day long just fine, but yet I feel like it's all happening outside of me and nothing really gets close.
Maybe it has to do with feeling undeserving. My IC talked to me about this at length. My biggest battle with pool is accepting the gifts I've been given. He asked me before I played the US Open one year if I'd be able to accept winning if the opportunity arose. It was hard for me to picture, because I just didn't feel I was good enough. He kept challenging me on this for many sessions. So in many ways I don't know that I feel deserving of a woman's love. Like whatever desirability other men think they have, I wasn't there that day God was passing it out.
In my head I know that I have the same inherent value as everyone else. And day to day I FEEL fine. I really do. I'm not looking for reassurances. This is more about me dealing with myself. But it could be this is part of why I feel disconnected. And it could be this is why I am so averse to a relationship. I am simply not in a spot to where I want to be villainized and rejected, or even told how a man 'should be'. So when everywhere I look I see relationships ending and women talking about how glad they're not with their ex anymore, it just really cements me wanting to stay the heck away.
The reason I talk about connecting with my kids is because it's an example of a time in my life when this barrier was breached. If nothing else at least that was possible. But maybe that was easier, because they are 'safer' somehow, because they love and appreciate me and need me. Don't worry, I'm ready to handle them when they turn 13 Point is, something shifted a couple of years ago, so it's possible this could happen again. I'm not sure I can force that though, it might just have to happen if it happens.
What's my point? I'm not sure. I don't know if this is something that will 'shift' at some point, and I'll go to EE or have some big breakthrough someday, and then everything will be different...or if this is who I am, and just part of being human, and I just have to manage through it the way everyone else does.
On a lighter note, everything's just fine today. It's been a good day and I'm enjoying it. Life is good. This isn't some problem I need to solve that's making me miserable. It's just something I am continuing to mull over. But day to day I've truly never been happier, healthier, and more content. And you guys have been a tone of help as I've come here, so thank you all very much. I do appreciate all of you for being here. JB, I'll watch the video soon. Thanks again.
Me:38 XW:38 T:11 years M:8 years Kids: S14, D11, D7 BD/Move out day: 6/17/14, D final Dec 15
